Conventional televisions offer very little assistance to a viewer who is navigating among many channels in an effort to locate a desired program or station. The television or cable set top box displays a channel number, but this is often the only information provided to the viewer. Some newer models might also display a network name or logo along with the channel number. Unfortunately, this user interface, although customary, is not particularly useful. Most viewers resort to memorizing their favorite channel numbers and skipping about to these favorite channels.
Memorizing favorite channels is effective when the channel offerings are few and the viewer is accustomed to a single regional television market. However, the number of channels available for viewing on cable or satellite television networks is expected to increase dramatically, with 500 or 1000 channels being commonplace. Today, a viewer may have no difficulty memorizing that the ESPN.RTM. Sports Network resides in his/her market on channel 29; but tomorrow, the same viewer might have trouble memorizing that ESPN 1 is on channel 292, ESPN 2 is on channel 564, and ESPN 3 is on channel 1008. Additionally, memorization does little to help the traveling viewer who finds himself or herself in a new market with entirely different channel number and network affiliations.
There is a need to improve television user interfaces to better assist viewers when selecting channels. Some progress has been made. Sony Corporation has developed one type of user interface which offers some viewer assistance in selecting favorite channels. FIG. 1 shows a Sony television system 20 having a television 22 and a remote control handset 24. In this example illustration, the handset 24 has a 10-digit numeric keypad 26, a four directional control buttons 28a-28d, and a menu button 30 centrally located in the directional control buttons 28. Other control buttons might also be included on the handset 24--such as power, volume, VCR shuttle controls, mute, etc.--but are not shown in this illustration.
The Sony system 20 provides a user interface in the form of a pop-up menu 32 which appears on the television 22 when the viewer depresses the menu button 30. The pop-up menu 32 lists five favorite channels of the viewer. A highlight bar 34 is initially positioned on the top choice, but can be scrolled over the favorites list using the up/down buttons 28a and 28c. The favorites list is user-configurable, allowing the viewer to define which channels are displayed in the pop-up menu 32. With this user interface, a viewer can quickly display his/her top five favorite channels and select the one most appealing at that moment. The user interface alleviates the problem of having to memorize favorite channels.
The inventors have developed a new user interface system for assisting a viewer in channel navigation, as well as other control features.